Imagine my surprise when I saw my name in a Leader editorial some six months after I moved to a different post doing the same job for Clallam County.

Is this several minutes of my 15 minutes of fame?

Thought I had more than exhausted my 15 minutes of fame back in 2007.

Readers should know the Port Ludlow development agreement discussed in the editorial, as well as Title 17 of the County Code, were expressions of a compromise reached by a stakeholder group in 1998 and 1999 after litigation that was filed a few years before had made continuing development of Port Ludlow quite difficult.

Neither document is lengthy, presumably because it is easier to agree to a shorter document that lays out general principles rather than a longer document with many precise rules.

What is absent from Title 17 was an enforcement mechanism for violations of that title and that was one root (awful pun!) of the timber harvest dispute with [Port Ludlow Associates].

The county learned from that and has inserted enforcement language into the proposed development regulations for the Master Planned Resort at Pleasant Harbor. [Department of Community Development] learned a valuable lesson and fixed an omission.

And the 14-page settlement agreement with PLA calls for adding enforcement provisions that can be applied against PLA. The Port Ludlow development agreement expires in May 2025 and after that, "there be dragons."

On the larger topic of the editorial, the civil deputy does much more than land use. For example: public records requests, contract review, general legal advice and serving on the canvassing board.

Prosecutor Haas needs to fill my old job title pronto. Six months is too long for the civil needs of the county government to not receive the undivided attention of a lawyer with municipal law expertise.

DAVID ALVAREZ

Port Townsend